Google Student Blog: Student Tips

Taking a shot with Google — an engineer's perspective

March 27, 2013

Nik talks with students at the Google booth
Photo: Mikael Hansson/InfoTech Umeå"

Recently I returned from helping represent Google at the DataTjej conference in Umeå, Sweden. A national conference for female students studying IT, DataTjej has been an annual event for the last 15 years, with lectures, workshops, and networking events for the ~ 120 conference goers.

I was able to spend a lot of time talking to the attendees, both at the Google booth and at the conference dinner, and was regularly surprised during those conversations as person after person told me that they'd be too afraid to even apply for a role at a company like Google, never mind actually going through the interview process.

I told everyone who said this the same thing, and I'm sharing it now in the hope that it might help change your mind if you're feeling the same way.

When you're interviewing at Google, we want you to do as well as you possibly can, so we do our best to make sure that that's possible. We don't ask trick questions, or look for ways to trip you up; our interviewers want to see you at your very best. The very worst that can happen is that we decide not to hire you (or you decide not to join us).

Nik presenting at DataTjej

So if you're at all interested in the opportunity to work on world-changing projects with computing infrastructure that spans the planet then I'd really encourage you to apply (see http://www.google.com/students and http://www.google.com/jobs for details). You've got nothing to lose.

Posted by Nik Clayton, Site Reliability Engineer

Four tips towards a successful technical interview

October 18, 2012

Christian, center, with fellow Googlers at the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade

Conquer the back to school blues with Google tools

August 9, 2012

Cross-posted from the Official Google Blogextension for ChromeEasy ways to coordinate your social and extracurricular life

Google+ Hangouts enables you to video chat with up to nine friends from your desktop, mobile phone or tablet. A great feature for when your club needs to discuss some last minute changes for the upcoming meeting.

Stay on task with Hangout Apps like Symphonical, which provides a digital wall of sticky notes for virtual brainstorm sessions.

With Google+ Events, invite all your friends to your get-together and attach a personalized video greeting to the invitation. During the event, photos from the party can be uploaded to the event page in real-time using Party Mode. So if you have to miss a party due to a study session, you can avoid that pesky FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)!

Let your friends know what you’re up to by sharing your Google Calendar with them. Or create a shared calendar just for your study group.

Stay organized and efficient—and be prepared for the unexpected

Stop the email flood from the ridiculous number of email lists you signed up for using Gmail’s auto-unsubscribe feature.

No more sore eyes from crowded inboxes—Gmail's default mode is Priority Inbox so it automatically sorts your important messages for you.

Cite your sources! Use Google Docs’ research tool to investigate highlighted portions of your essay and then generate a citation.

Group projects call for collaboration. With Google Drive, you can use shared folders so everyone can access materials without having to email updates to each other.

Using your laptop or phone, you can send any documents or presentations saved on your Google Drive to Fedex to be printed, thanks to Google Cloud Print.

Get what you need and where you’re going faster

For those of you starting at university this year, Google Maps has 360-degree panoramic Street View imagery for many campuses around the world to give you a preview of your new stomping grounds.

Back to school shopping is one of the most fun things about August. Find your way in and out of malls and department stores with indoor Google Maps on Android devices.

We college students can’t go too long without homemade food. Search for your next flight home with Flight Search. (If flying makes you a bit queasy, track any care packages by typing the tracking code into the Google search bar.)

Stay informed with Google Now. This feature, available on Android devices running Jelly Bean, can update you when the next bus is coming or provide the weather forecast for Saturday’s big game.

Reading, writing, 'rithmetic and... YouTube

Don’t break the bank on textbooks. Google Play has millions of FREE (emphasis is important) books readily available such as "Pride and Prejudice" and "Gulliver’s Travels."

With the new Nexus 7 tablet, you can take your Google Play books, music, movies, TV shows, magazines and apps (like My Majors and doubleTwist Alarm Clock) with you, wherever you go.

Locate hard-to-find books online or at a library near you with Book Search.

Put Chrome to work with educational apps.

Not a fan of traditional note taking? Chromebooks are a super fast and virus-proof laptop. It starts seconds after you boot it and will last through a whole day of classes.

A fair portion of us students aren’t fans of mental math. Type any equation into the Google search box to get the answers you need. It can graph functions as well.

We know we spend too much of our time watching funny videos on YouTube, but there are video channels that can actually help us learn more about a variety of subjects—from astrophysics to world history. Find more educational channels at YouTube EDU.

Posted by Jenise Araujo, BOLD Intern, Communications Team

College Tips by Google: A new site for students

December 13, 2011

...and this was about a tenth of it!

College Tips by Google

Tips for high school seniors to help with the application process, campus visits and getting ready for school.

Tips for current students to help keep your schoolwork and social life organized

Tips specifically for dealing with all the responsibilities of being a college senior, like preparing for graduation and looking for your first job

submit your own Google college tipsGoogle Student BlogPosted by David Kaufman, Cornell University ‘10 (Go Red!), Product Marketing Manager

Showing some love to math lovers

December 5, 2011

Cross-posted from the official Google Search blogfunction

multiple functionsmath loversPosted by Adi Avidor, Google Engineer and Math Lover

Navigating the college admissions process with Google

September 13, 2011

football seasonis sponsoringUS News and World Report college rankingsawesome things

Docs:

Put all the colleges of interest in a Google spreadsheet. To track your progress, include relevant due dates and tasks to complete for each school.

Write your admissions essays in a Google doc, which makes it easy for you to share and get feedback from peers and family members.

Access these documents from any computer at any time, whether it’s at school, home or on a college visit.

Gmail:

Now is a good time to make sure you have a professional-sounding personal email address. You may be interacting with college recruiters or alumni interviewers this fall, so if you’ve been using “unicorn-lover@email.com” since elementary school, consider creating a new Gmail account.

Use labels to automatically sort and color-code all incoming messages from colleges.

Quickly find important emails with Gmail’s powerful search capabilities.

Calendar:

Create color-coded calendars for each university and its various deadlines. Overlaying the calendars will make it easy to visualize what needs to be done when.

Create a tasks list that can be sorted by importance or date.

Enable email or text message reminders for the important events.

Posted by Nikhil Sheel, BOLD intern

How I use Google Docs as a student

August 23, 2011

Cross-posted from the Docs BlogShep McAllister is a rising senior at Trinity University in San Antonio, TX, and editor of the popular student blog HackCollege. For the past several years, he has done his college coursework exclusively on Google Docs, and today he shares his five favorite uses for the platform in the classroom.1. Work together on group projectsdiscussions feature2. Take notes collaborativelyHackCollege3. Convert PDFs and handouts to searchable text with Optical Character Recognition (OCR)OCR capabilities4. Save major assignments in the cloud5. Collect information from a group with formsformsPosted by Shep McAllister, HackCollege.com Blogger & Trinity University Student

Get organized this fall with page-level permissions in Google Sites

August 18, 2011

page-level permissions for SitesUndergraduate Student Initiated Education

getting started guidePosted by Amy Huang, Technical Account Specialist

Google and diversity organizations team up: conference series recap and student tips

May 4, 2011

Introduction: Google sponsors and participates in a variety of diversity conferences for engineering students. To learn more about Google’s involvement, we sat down with Hal Marz, a University Programs Specialist. For each of these conferences Hal plays an integral role in overseeing Google's participation and sponsorship. Here, Hal talks about three of these recent conferences and shares his advice for students interested in working at Google.

What’s your position at Google, and what are your main responsibilities?

I am a University Programs Specialist with Google based out of Mountain View, CA. While I spend quite a bit of time partnering with universities in Canada to keep them informed of engineering job opportunities that we have in Google offices worldwide, I also manage the relationships with some of our diversity partners and represent Google at several student diversity conferences in the United States.

Tell us about the recent conferences you’ve attended.

Hal (center) and Google volunteers at the NSBE Convention

National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) Annual Convention - St. Louis, MO (March 23-27)
This year’s theme was “Engineering the Gateway to Success”, and the purpose of the Annual Convention is to provide attendees with the motivation, skills and opportunity to succeed in engineering. Google engineers and University Programs staff talked to students about job opportunities (both intern and new graduate positions). One of our engineers created a game called “query hunt” that students could play at our booth and win some Google swag. This timed game tested their Web searching skills. We also had one of our New York based software engineers participate in a panel discussion on cloud computing that many students attended. After the convention’s career fair, we invited students to come talk to us about opportunities at Google. Over 200 students stopped by to speak with us! Most had visited our booth earlier in the conference, but many had additional questions for our team. It was a great way for us to continue conversations with the students in a relaxed, fun environment.

The Computer Research Association's Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) Grad Cohort - Boston, MA (April 1-2)
Google co-hosted an evening reception for 300 women students in their first year of graduate school. We welcomed them into the community of computing researchers and professionals by presenting on topics such as career development and graduate education while introducing them to some leading computer science professionals during their two-day meeting. One of our engineers spoke about opportunities for women in computer science and her experience working at Google. Outside of the workshops and speakers, there were also mixers and fun social events. My favorite part of the conference was being the only guy dancing with 300 women to “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”.

Hal at the Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing

Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing - San Francisco, CA (April 3-5)
The 2011 Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing conference was the largest in the conference’s history and is being called the most diverse conference in computing in the nation. In addition to the our sponsorship, Google also planned all of the logistics for the conference, which included over 500 students. This conference was a great opportunity for Google to meet some of the top computer science students in North America. We had a great turnout from Googlers as well—20 volunteered their time during the three-day conference to host technical interview workshops and speak to students at our booth, amongst other things.

What’s the most rewarding part of attending and helping out with these conferences?

I really enjoy meeting the future talent for our engineering community. I especially look forward to meeting younger students who are just starting to get interested in computer science. Their enthusiasm and energy for this industry is quite contagious. At Google, we strive for diversity—and the excitement shared amongst such a distinguished group of students at these conferences reminds me why we value diversity in people and ideas at Google.

What’s the most common question you get from students? What’s your answer?

Besides all the questions I get about the free food, I get asked, “What types of jobs does Google have to offer?” I usually point students to our student job site at www.google.com/students/eng, and I explain that this comprehensive site gives them an accurate look into what we are currently looking for at Google. I try my best to know about as many of the job openings as I can, from what skills the position requires to what sort of responsibilities the role takes on. Even though I am not an engineer, I have learned a lot from the engineers who travel with me to conferences or who give tech talks at the schools I manage. They give me insight into what they do on a day-to-day basis, which is valuable information I can share with the students. Everyday I learn something new and exciting, and my hope is that I can convey that excitement to the future leaders of computer science.

Do you have any words of advice for students hoping to work at Google?

I have two simple things to share:

1) Do your homework! Do some research before you approach the Google booth—or really any company representative. Find out what jobs are currently open, and find a job that particularly suits you. Talk the job up to a recruiter and find similarities in the job description and your skills. Formulate ahead of time a couple of questions that you can ask. It will show the recruiter that you have researched the role and are interested in working for the company. You will get a lot more out of the conversation this way.

2) Be yourself and play to your strengths. Your passion will come through in any of your conversations with a Google representative.

Posted by Jessica Safir, University Programs Coordinator

Google Docs eases the pain of group work

March 8, 2011

Miles Malerba is a senior at the Rochester Institute of Technology and a Google Student Ambassador. In this post he writes about using Google Docs for group projects as a Software Engineering major. If you have a tip that you’d like to share and have featured on this blog, let us know!Google Docs

For me this project was one of those moments where you realize just how much technology has changed the way you do things. Now that I use Google Docs I can’t imagine having to do a group project without it.

So whenever I wind up in a group that has never tried Docs before I insist that we try it, and we can stop using it if the group doesn’t like it; I’ve never been in a group that didn’t like it.

Posted by Miles Malerba, Rochester Institute of Technology

Using my maps for your summer sublet

February 16, 2011

[Cross-posted from the Google Lat-Long Blog]

Katie is an Electrical and Computer Engineering student at University of Colorado, Boulder. She loves to use My Maps and her favorite map is one she created to keep track of her world travels, with all the countries she’s visited and a link to her Picasa Web Album for that trip. If you have a tip to share on this blog, let us know!
maps.google.com

After adding a number of specific locations to your map, you can also customize and edit the map to fit your style preferences. To access your map thus far, click on the “My Maps” link in the top left corner of the page, and select the map you are interested in editing. By clicking the “Edit” button, you are now in editing mode on the map and can easily make changes to the names of locations or the style of icon. To make a change to a specific place, just click on that location. On the map, an editable box appears where you can easily make changes, such adding as some notes about the place.

The end product is a unique map showcasing why your sublet is the right option to pick. Here’s an example I used for an apartment in Boulder, Colorado.

Stand out in your next apartment rental posting with My Maps today!

Posted by Katie Corner, University of Colorado

Student Tip: Using Google Calendar for Student Groups

January 13, 2011

Paula is a Senior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, double-majoring in marketing and management. Here she shares how several student organizations she works with, such as American Marketing Association and International Impact, have utilized Google Calendar to manage scheduling. If you have a tip to share on this blog, let us know!

Like most outgoing students on today’s college campuses, I’m sure you’re involved with several student organizations. You probably even serve on a few executive boards or college councils. With this increased involvement, students need a way to organize their busy schedules and prioritize their time among several responsibilities. The solution – Google Calendar!Google Calendar

The benefits of using Google Calendar for student organizations really revolve around the student members. In my experience, serving on two executive boards last semester, using Google Calendar has made it easier for members to keep up with meetings and stay involved. And better informed members equals more successful student organizations. So happy scheduling!

Posted by Paula Guzman, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Online Office Hours with Google Docs

October 4, 2010

Cross-posted on the Google Docs Blog.
Alex is a senior at Harvard University, and interned this summer on Google's marketing team. Here he shares how he uses Docs to save time (and body heat) braving the cold Eastern winters. If you have a tip to share on this blog, please let us know!Now that the dorm move-in dust has settled and you have your class schedules all figured out, I wanted to share one of my favorite ways to use Google Docs that might help you stay on top of your work, save some time and maybe even stay a little warmer this school year!

I use the real-time collaboration in Google Docs to hold online office hours with my professors and TAs. This allows me to collaborate, edit and revise my papers and reports in real-time no matter where my TAs or professors are on campus.

The air is already getting pretty crisp here in Boston and – if your school is in a similarly cold climate – you know exactly how nice it can be to avoid that icy trek across campus to office hours during the winter months. Here is how I use real-time collaboration in Google Docs to hold online office hours with my TAs so that I can review, revise and edit my assignments from the comfort and warmth of my own dorm room:

Set up some time to ‘meet’ with your professor or TA (hint: it's easy to do using Google Calendar). Sign into Google Docs at docs.google.com to get started.

Once in Google Docs, click the 'Share' button in the upper right hand corner. Enter your professor or TA’s email address in the ‘Add people’ field and click ‘Share’.

Your professor or TA will receive a link to the doc and a notification telling them that you have shared your doc with them. When they open the doc you will notice that their user name will appear in the top right corner of the screen. You are now collaborating in Google Docs.

Your professor or TA can now help you revise your doc in real time. Clicking the blue box in the upper right hand corner of the screen will allow you to chat with them and ask questions as you move through the doc. Your editor can also add comments to your doc without actually rewriting the text. Highlighting a passage and then selecting 'Insert > Comment' will allow them to make a note about that section to the right of the page.

Your professor or TA’s cursor will be visible as they move through the doc to show where there are currently reviewing or editing. Their cursor will appear in the color corresponding to the box next to their display name in the chat box. When they highlight a passage you will also be able to see their highlighted section in their color. As more people are invited to collaborate on the doc they will have different colors assigned to them so that you can tell who made each comment or revision.

Holding online office hours with Google Docs is just one of the ways to use Google to simplify your life as a student.

Stay tuned for more tips on using Google to make life at school easier on the Google Student Blog or submit your own to share!

Posted by Alex Roux, Harvard University

Student Tip: Google forms for student groups

September 10, 2010

Cross posted on the Google Docs blog

Emily is a senior at Emory University, majoring in Business and Biology. This summer, she worked as an intern on the Google Apps for Education team and here she shares some tips about Google forms. If you have a tip to share on this blog, please let us know!
a new Google form theme

After collecting all of the responses, I could easily view the results of my data. All I had to do was go to the “Form” tab in the spreadsheet housing all of the survey information and select “Show summary of responses.” This produced the data in a simple, clear graphical format making the data easy to use.

Check out the responses to the question “I am interested in the Goizueta International Network organizing the following...”

We’ve decided to focus on the ideas that had the most support. We know they will benefit and excite both local and foreign students because they all participated in the decision process.

Google forms can be useful in any area of a college student’s life. It can classify and coordinate information for classes, clubs, athletic teams, fraternities or sororities, friends, family, or any group or organization. As a Google Student Ambassador I plan to educate more people on my campus about how Google forms (along with the rest of the Docs and Apps suite) can make all their activities run more quickly and easily.

Without putting in too much effort, we got a solid response rate and now have some great ideas for next year.

Posted by Emily Rubin, Emory University

Student Tip: Use Google Docs and Calendar to Import Class Syllabi

September 3, 2010

Taylor Bell is a Google Student Ambassador at Boise State University. From time to time, we'll have ambassadors like Taylor share some of their favorite tips and tricks for making Google tools and applications useful for student life. If you have a tip to share on this blog, please let us know! Google CalendarGoogle Docshttp://bit.ly/importtemplate

Posted by Taylor Bell, Student Ambassador at Boise State University

Student Blog